BORIS AND NATASHA IN SIBERIA
by Atana
Summary: What happened to the Dastardly Duo after the Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle movie?
1. Chapter 1

** BORIS AND NATASHA IN SIBERIA**

** By Atana**

** ----------**

**"_Boris – don't you want to have a little Boris? A little Natasha? Wouldn't that be wonderful! We could rent a cottage on sea of Pottsylvania and teach them to lie and cheat…they would be worst children in world! They would be monsters! Oh, it would be awful! We could be so happy!"_**

_** - Natasha Fatale in Universal Studio's "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle" (2000)**_

** ----------**

**One might joke that if things weren't Badenov, just wait a few minutes.**

**This might have been humorous to Rocket J. Squirrel or Bullwinkle J. Moose (their middle initials being a legacy from their creator), but they were anything but that to Boris and Natasha. Because they had failed to eliminate the plucky heroes of the nineteen-sixties television show, the pair now found themselves permanently ensconced a few hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle.**

**At the end of Fearless Leader's last thwarted Dastardly Plan ™ (patent pending), the three Pottsylvanian _nogoodniks_ had been sucked up into the Internet. For an indeterminate time, they drifted past innumerable websites, dodging spam and suffering glancing blows from various pop-ups. Finally, they were fortunate enough to be eagerly downloaded by a "Rocky and Bullwinkle" fan girl. It was still more fortunate that she pulled them from the monitor _a la _Sadako Yamamura from _The Ring_ rather than sending them to the printer, which would have made a mess of her mother's autumn gold shag carpet.**

**Thus, Fearless Leader – Boris Badenov – and Natasha Fatale became flesh-and-blood people once again.**

**The three had promptly made their escape from the fan girl's room (there was a brief skirmish with the family dog in the hallway; Boris' fedora would forevermore bear Bedlington Terrier bite marks). They eventually wandered out onto the main highway where they were nearly flattened by a southbound tour bus, ultimately making their way to a theme restaurant.**

**After a tense and hasty meal of buffalo wings and deep-fried mozzarella sticks (and shortly before stiffing the restaurant for the bill), Fearless Leader promptly exiled both hapless spies to Siberia for lying to him about killing "Moose unt Sqvirrel".**

**Pottyslvania was too temperate in climate. Fearless Leader wanted Badenov and Fatale to suffer, particularly because the latter had gotten lipstick on the cuff of his pant leg, kissing his feet in begging supplication while pleading with him for their lives.**

** ----------**

**To say that it is cold in Oymyakon is like saying water is wet. Located in the Sakha Republic of Russia, Oymyakon is the coldest continuously-inhabited place in the world. On the 26th of January, 1926, a temperature of slightly over seventy-one degrees below zero was recorded. Of course, it was to Oymyakon where the hapless couple had been exiled. Boris became a potato farmer (he occasionally herded reindeer, an activity that painfully reminded him of Bullwinkle) and Natasha finally attained her dream of becoming a stay-at-home mom.**

** ----------**

**Natasha had repeatedly shared her feelings on the matter over the long time the pair had been together.**

**"I been vit you years and years! Vere it get me? Vy couldn't I been Chames Bond girl instead?"**

**Predictably, Boris had either scrunched his head into his trench coat collar (causing him to resemble an extremely malevolent tortoise) or had muttered "Hau boy!" and slunk into another room. It had done the poor man no good.**

**"Boris dollink! My time clock goes tick! Tick! Tick! Chust like bomb! One day, kablooey! Dat's it! Game over!"**

**Boris had managed to sidestep the issue of starting a family until Fearless Leader had settled their proverbial hash for them. Besides, other than trying to keep from freezing to death, there wasn't much else to do in Northeastern Siberia.**

**Thus it was that Natasha's days of merry widows, Eau de Joy, and opera gloves were over. She couldn't have cared less. After long last, this peripatetic woman had found her true mission.**

**----------**

**Yet, Fate was cruel to Boris and Natasha.**

**In spite of their parents' worst intentions, the Badenov children had grown into the most admirable of youngsters. They did beautifully in school. They were well-mannered, good-tempered, diligent, thoughtful, and benevolent.**

**In short, they were everything their parents were not.**

**"Vere ve go wrong, dollink?" Natasha said to Boris.**

**"They vill drife me to trink," Boris said to Natasha.**

**----------**

**The children all had names that began with "A" (Natasha hadn't yet started on the "B"s). Aleksandra Borisovna Badenov (also known as Sasha) was sixteen years old, and if the former Soviet Union could have generated a stereotypical inky-haired, multiply-pierced, and black-clad Goth girl, she would be its shining star. Sasha's dream was to win _Russia's Next Top Model_ and to move to a temperate climate.**

**Aleksei Borisovich Badenov, fifteen, stood much taller than his father, which wasn't saying much. He was a technological whiz kid, able to pick up Internet access from the lone satellite that passed overhead once a day. The enterprising lad had even constructed a computer from the remains of an old crystal radio set, an Etch-a-Sketch screen, and a broken roller skate. He could also pick up satellite TV, but it did him no good. The Badenovs were the only family in Oymyakon that got HBO but couldn't afford a television.**

**Anna Borisovna Badenov was fourteen, short like her father but fortunately blessed with her mother's exotic looks. Anya (as she was known to friends and family) had a fixation with 'sixties nostalgia and favored bouffant hairdos and go-go boots. She was also quite religious, wearing a gold Russian Orthodox cross around her neck. A large icon of the Romanovs (the Holy Royal Martyrs) also stood in a prominent place in her bedroom.**

**"Vy ve need holy picture size of electronik board in Times Square Noo Yawk?" Natasha had asked her.**

**"You vouldn't understand, Mama," Anya had replied. "You and Papa are godless Commies."**

**Anya had long resigned herself to becoming a mail-order bride someday in order to get the heck out of Dodge, as the _Americanskis_ were fond of saying. Her latest draft letter read:**

_**Dear Amerika man**_

**_My nam Anya very nice pretty in nice cold willage good cook make fire milk reindeer dig potatoes clean clothes Want live St Petersburg Florida not Russia __pazhalusta__ near fountin or pretty beach where is warm _**

_**thank you many pretty kiss hug **_

_**ANYA**_

**Arkadiy Borisovich Badenov (otherwise known as Arek) was just two years old and his scowling little countenance already resembled that of his paternal parent. He was fond of playing with matches and throwing things, which gladdened his father's heart.**

**"He be big-time bomb tosser sumday, _nyet_?" Boris had beamed.**

**----------**

**It was another typical day in the Badenov household, er, wooden hut-hold. The place wasn't much; just picture a typical home in Borat's home village, except twice as shabby and a lot colder.**

**"_Raskolnikov!_ Vy I become human again? Cartoons don't freeze to death," groused Boris, entering the room, shivering with cold and exhausted from trying to hoe potatoes in permafrost. "Wass for dinner, Poopsie?"**

**"Is buffet tonight, dollink. Potato soup, potato goulash, potato patties, potato knishes, mash potatoes, and potato blintzes. Knock youself out."**

**"Sveetie Pie, is alvays same t'ing!"**

**"But Boris dollink! Tomorrow we have horsemeat! Day after, nize bowl snow for breakfast!" Humming _Ochi Chornya_ under her breath, she turned and called, "Sasha! Anya! Aleksei! Your favrit' time day!"**

**The family assembled around the small and wonky chipped formica-and-aluminum table (after all, they _were_ exiles). Boris, frowning, used his spoon to break the rim of ice covering his potato soup. _Splink! _**

**"Pass black bread, pliz," he said to Aleksei.**

**The boy, always eager to be helpful (Boris winced at his instant compliance), promptly passed the basket. Little Arek squawked and flung a glob of mashed potato across the table, pegging his father on the shoulder.**

**"You done homevork?" Boris inquired, wiping it away with a smear and giving an approving wink to the toddler, who was now engaged in greasing back his hair with buttered mashed potatoes. Boris reached for a pepper shaker bearing the legend "SOUVENIR OF CHERNOBYL, PRIPYAT" (_N. B._ Boris and Natasha had gone there for their honeymoon).**

**"Uf caws I did homevork," Aleksei replied, smiling proudly.**

**"Too bad," Boris sighed, shaking his head.**

**"Lookie how cute," Natasha announced, chucking the befouled baby under his greasy chin. "Arek look like Michael Douglas in _Vall Street_!"**

**Sasha turned to her sister. "Loan me gold cross?"**

**Anya sniffed. "Don't go to church, don't get cross."**

**"But please! Is big dence tonight at club! Got bleck corset, bleck stripe tights, bleck hot pants, bleck waffle-stompers. Need cross!"**

**"Where you get black corset?" her sister replied ominously.**

**"Vas Mama's long time ago," Sasha said nervously, aware that she was breaking her mother's confidence. Iron Curtain or not, the Natasha of Old had managed to amass an extensive collection of fancy underthings, none of which still fit her.**

**"Hau boy," Natasha sighed.**

**The proverbial barn door was not only ajar, but had swung wide open. ****"Mama," Anya said decisively. "In trunk I found old purple dress from Sixties. Can I have, or it still fit you?"**

**"HOO HAH!" Boris fell to the floor, convulsed with laughter.**

**"Shaddap you mouth, dollink!" Natasha retorted, wounded.**

**----------**


	2. How Mama Got Her Start

Chapter Two – How Mama Got Her Start

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_Her face is a map of the world  
Is a map of the world  
You can see she's a beautiful girl  
She's a beautiful girl  
And everything around her is a silver pool of light  
The people who surround her feel the benefit of it  
It makes you calm  
She holds you captivated in her palm_

_KT Tunstall, "Suddenly I See"_

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Dinner was over, and Natasha Fatale-Badenova had washed up and cleaned the kitchen. Boris was snoring in his chair next to the radio (the pair both refused to have their son's computer in the parlor, for obvious reasons); little Arek lay across his father's chest, snoring every bit as loudly. The older children were off getting ready for school the next day. It had been unseasonably frigid, but since Oymyakon never closed school unless the temperature dropped under fifty degrees below zero, Sasha, Aleksei, and Anya chose to be safe rather than sorry.

For a few minutes, then, things were quiet and the lady of the house had a moment to sit by herself and think a thought.

For years, Natasha's life had been marked by chaos and disruption. Nothing had been safe; nothing had been certain but uncertainty and the possibility that her superiors might choose to have her liquidated on whatever whim struck their fancies. This life was infinitely better, even though her family had little in the way of material goods and was at constant war with the unforgiving elements. Yet, it was good to be left alone by the world, at long last.

Without a doubt, the Badenov children were blessed – by who or what Natasha neither knew nor understood (her Stalinist education had denied her even the contemplation of a God). Their legs were straight, their clothes were whole, and their coats were made of thick fur that protected them from the bitter Oymyakon weather. They were clever and intelligent, and they went to bed each night with their bellies full.

They were also lucky.

-------------

Natasha, on the other hand, had been a girl whose luck had run out early.

She had been malnourished and uneducated, a spindly Romanian child who wore two thick braids and a _platok, _or headscarf, tied at the back of her neck. The _platok_, she now recalled, had violets on it and had been very pretty; it had been a birthday gift from her mother. The rest of her clothes were ragged and nondescript, and usually in dark colors. She had one pair of shoes to her name.

She remembered little of her first few years of life, recalling mostly cavernous stone rooms and a landscape with high mountains and swift rivers and dangerous gorges. She lived with her mother and had very few memories of her father, who had been tall and dark and whose voice had frightened her. He and her mother had spent a good deal of their time together fighting and screaming, usually about her.

The morning after one such domestic battle, her mother had taken her to a large wooden building in Nagyvarad, Transylvania. Her mother – who sometimes spoke English – had been in a bad mood and had pulled roughly at Natasha as both ended up standing in front of a desk. There were a lot of children around; the girl looked around in wonder at her new school.

Her mother spoke long and earnestly to the woman behind the desk, handing her a embroidered bag full of money and carefully lettering her daughter's name as Nataliya Ileana Vladirescu. It came as a shock to the four-year-old when her mother knelt down and told her to behave herself, and then turned and left the building without her.

Of course, Nata ran after her, calling to her, hot tears spurting from her eyes. Ashamed and afraid, she scrubbed them away, and then – distracted as she was – she tripped and fell. Without another word, her mother climbed back into the carriage that had brought them both and disappeared from view.

"Here, get up! You'll just get in trouble if you don't," said a big girl standing beside her, pulling her up off the ground. A crunch of gravel made Nata turn around, where she saw the woman at the desk now standing before her with hands on hips. Nata looked at her own hands, bleeding slightly from cuts the gravel had made.

"Your mother has left you here and she isn't coming back, so you might as well get used to it," the woman said curtly. "Come with me."

It was all too much for the child, who began to cry.

"We'll have none of that," the woman said, pursing her lips. "We do not cry here. Get along with you."

Later, Nata learned that the big wooden building wasn't her new school after all.

It was an orphanage.

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Her mother never did come back for her, although Nata slept with the little violet _platok_ until it was a tattered rag.

It really hadn't surprised anyone that 'Nata Vlad' grew up with a mean streak, a terror of being left alone, and the ability to stuff her feelings down so deeply that even she didn't know they were there. Her only stroke of good luck was that she was a beautiful girl, which helped her survive throughout her difficult and troubled life. Thirteen years to the day after her mother had left her, Natasha triggered the orphanage fire alarm and waited until the building was empty.

And then, she burned the place to the ground.

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Felix Fyódorov (destined later in life for the designation of "Fearless Leader" by his hallowed government) blew his big nose with a pocket-handkerchief and picked up his telephone receiver. At this time in his career, he was a mid-level military officer assigned to the Pottsylvanian Central Control and was also quite bored out of his mind.

"Yes?"

"Operative Sokolov here. I have an interesting prospect for you."

"Spit it out. Stop wasting my time!"

"A seventeen-year-old girl, currently in jail in Nagyvarad, Romania."

"And so?"

"She torched an orphanage."

Fyódorov leaned back in his chair and smiled. "Tell me more."

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Four days later, Nataliya Ileana Vladirescu sat before him. Her long black hair covered half her face and her orphanage uniform was dirty and torn. Her long thin legs – bruised from her attempts at kicking the police who had taken her into custody -- stretched in front of her, grey socks scrunched down on top of battered shoes.

"You realize that you are out of jail totally due to my good graces," Fyódorov began, steepling his fingers and looking as stern as possible. "You already owe a great deal to the Pottsylvanian government, girl. We are interested in training and employing you as an operative, even though you seem to be little more than a nasty little snip with a talent for making Molotov cocktails."

"It wasn't easy finding the equipment I needed in an orphanage," Nata replied in very bad Pottsylvanian (which, fortunately for her, was close to Romanian), "but I managed it."

"Why did you do it?"

The girl snorted. "Why shouldn't I do it? The place was a hellhole. I was sick of bad food and being assaulted by that pig of a headmaster. It was a prison for children. Surely you know that."

"Enough of your impertinence, young woman, or you will find yourself incarcerated again very quickly, and this time in a Pottsylvanian prison." Fyódorov scanned a document he held in his hands. "Let's see. Stealing food, stealing supplies. Lying to everyone about everything. Blackmailing your peers. Blackmailing your teachers. Cheating on exams. Sabotage. Running away. Wanton destruction of property."

Silence.

"Very good, little Vladirescu," he concluded. "You are a perfect candidate for our secret service. Besides, you are quite – beautiful. That could be very useful to the State."

The girl rolled her eyes.

Fyódorov sighed, and then punched the button of his intercom and moments later his assistant came into the room.

"Mischa, enroll this ragamuffin in the Academy at once. It will be hard for her; according to her records, she's as stupid as a bag of bricks."

Nata blinked hard, her face flushing with shame.

"Fumigate her first. She's probably full of worms. She's a filthy little peasant; teach her manners and how to dress properly." He thought for a moment. "Her name is no good. _Natasha_ – that's the Pottsylvanian pronunciation – that's all right. Now, what to do about a last name?" Fyódorov looked at her pointedly. "Ever been to the movies, girl?"

Nata shook her head.

"Even the wisest and most cautious of men can be brought down by a _femme fatale_ – yes, that will do, I think. Natasha Fatale. That, my dear, will be your new name. Don't forget and call yourself by that dismal mouthful of Romanian doggerel ever again."

Nata nodded.

Fyódorov turned to his assistant. "I want her Pottsylvanian flawless; no one should ever suspect that she's not a native. Now get her out of here before I change my mind and remand her to the Romanian authorities."

Natasha stood and tossed back her hair. "_Mult'umesc foarte mult._ Thank you," she said.

The future Fearless Leader stood with a military snap. "Leave before I throw you out the window myself!"

Natasha Fatale – no longer 'Nata Vlad' -- smiled.

She turned and left the room with her escort, feeling hope for the first time in her young life. Right before the door closed, Fyódorov had a sudden brainstorm. He waved his crop, inspired.

"English!" he cried. "And teach her English!"

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Natasha was roused from her musings by a tugging at her long wool skirt.

"Ah, Arek," she soothed, picking up the little boy. "Bedtime for Baby, yes?" She took a minute to hold him close, enjoying his warmth and sigh of comfort.

If only someone had once held her that way, how different her life would have been.

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End file.
